He was the most surprising Booker Prize winner in years. DBC Pierre had been a con man and a drug addict before he became a writer. Now he’s won one of the world’s great literary prizes. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge we’ll talk with some award-winning writers including DBC...Read more
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Episode Archives
Everyone knows what comic books are about, right? But it's not all about people in long underwear hitting each other. This hour on To the Best of Our Knowledge, heroes, anti-heroes, and regular folks strutting their stuff in black and white.Read more
Thousands of the world's languages are disappearing in the wake of globalization. And because language is the DNA of culture, a lost language is a lost culture. Today, stories from the frontlines of the language revitalization movement. Also, Dr. Larry Brilliant's improbable journey from...Read more
Seven hundred million people get their music from the Internet. More than 10 million people own iPods. Does this mean that compact discs and record companies are going the way of the gramophone and eight-track tapes? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll look at this digital...Read more
Tenzin Palmo isn’t your ordinary Englishwoman. For twelve years she boiled snow for drinking water, lived without heat and electricity, and spent 12 hours a day propped up in a wooden box. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a Buddhist nun recalls her years of meditation in a lonely...Read more
Are we running out of water? Science writer Fred Pearce thinks so. He's traveled the world to investigate the current state of crucial water sources. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge Pearce talks about the defining crisis of the twenty-first century. Also, we'll explore the social...Read more
Who's calling your shots? Who's in charge of your thinking, your perceptions? Maybe it's simple. Your mind is the boss, then your brain runs your body. Everything's fine. Until it's not and you find yourself confronting depression or autism or a head injury that leaves you with brain damage....Read more
Space, the final frontier. But is science fiction the final frontier when it comes to being a literature of ideas? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we'll wax philosophical about science fiction with two of the genre's greatest writers -- George R.R. Martin and Ursula K. Le Guin....Read more
There's something magical about making words. Ask any parent what their baby's first word was. Chances are they'll remember. Words are what set us apart from all the other animals. And they're endlessly fascinating. In this hour of To Best of Our Knowledge we'll meet a variety of people...Read more
In 1945 Franklin Roosevelt worked out a deal with the king of Saudi Arabia. America got unlimited access to Saudi Oil, and in return, the U.S. protected the Royal Family against its enemies. Now that special relationship is under fire. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the politics...Read more
In the early 1950's two-year-old Jacqueline Henley in New Orleans became darker. After the neighbors complained, her aunt turned her over to New Orleans authorities. A black couple wanted to adopt Jacqueline but -- she had the word “white” stamped on her birth certificate. Next time on To...Read more
Have you ever thought about disappearing... wiping out your old identity and starting fresh, with a new name, a new life, a new self? In this hour we try to find out how to disappear completely. You too can vanish without a trace! Read more
Have you ever heard of Bibleman, the Caped Christian? This evangelical superhero quotes scripture while fighting villains. There's a Bibleman video series, as well as a live show, toys, and a computer game. Bibleman is just part of the seven-billion-dollar Christian pop culture industry. In...Read more
June 22nd, 1977. Two college women are camping. A man runs over their tent in a pickup truck. Then he attacks the women with an axe. Fifteen years later, one of the women returns to central Oregon to try to solve the crime. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, Terri Jentz shares...Read more
Science and the Search for Meaning: Five Questions, Part 3: Does the Soul Still Matter?
For centuries, we’ve been told the soul is what makes each of us unique. It’s why we have moral responsibility. And it’s the part of us that lives on after we die. ...Read more
Electrons to Enlightenment
Part Five
In the real world where we take out the garbage, we sometimes brush up against wonder and awe. We all look for it in different places. Some of us find it in God, like the great mystic poet...Read more
In India he’s known as the giggling guru. In America Dr. Maden Kataria is famous in certain circles as the man who founded Laughter Yoga. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge the man who’s changing the world with chuckles, chortles and belly laughs. And, why more and more people...Read more
Who did the press hail as the conqueror of the air? Alberto Santos-Dumont, who flew around the Eiffel Tower while Jules Verne and H.G. Wells watched and wondered. He even tied his “personal airship” to the lamp posts outside restaurants in Paris, and worked to revolutionize transportation. ...Read more
"The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you."...Read more
Imagine living your whole life in excruciating pain, 24/7, and actually choosing to go without any pain medication. Next time on To the Best of Our Knowledge, one man’s permanent pain. And is a teenager slashing her arms with a razor a cry for help or an ancient ritual of sacred pain? Also,...Read more
The Meaning of Life
Part Four
Pete Best should have been famous beyond his wildest dreams. He had Ringo's job just months before the Beatles' "Love Me Do" became a smash hit. But he got tossed out of the band and ended up working...Read more
Imagine the world as we know it, only without us. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, a writer imagines a world reinventing itself without human beings. He sees the New York subway system returning to its watery origins. The re-absorption of carbon into the earth, and endangered...Read more